Some of this shit ain't even "Gen Z" in terms of the age of people using it! Like tea!
"What's tea?" I grew up hearing my AUNTIES say that!
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White/nonblack folks ruining black/AAVE slang and can never talk it
- Thread starter Messofanego
- Start date
Some of this shit ain't even "Gen Z" in terms of the age of people using it! Like tea!
"What's tea?" I grew up hearing my AUNTIES say that!
Sus has been used for multiple decades in my region (West Mids) and it has always been a way to say someone is basically a closeted gay. Usually accompanied with various other homophobia slurs too. It's always been a shitty term, and its recent resurgence didn't really change that
This was super helpful and just sat down with them speaking exactly this.
It's odd the feeling from my perspective that it seems more like uniformity and acceptance but I also recognize that as a microaggression and handwaving the issue. Going back to my example of pow wows, it could be seen as something that maybe wouldn't be a necessity as a way of life if the atrocities weren't committed and Indigenous culture wasn't some rare commodity used for hippy and spiritual fashion and vibes. I'm glad I asked and appreciate the feedback and understand more than I did beforehand.
because before the internet, people that wouldn't use the slang wouldn't even know it existed. you had to be part of the culture, IN PERSON, to hear people talking about it like that.
now, he internet made slang that is decade's old new and fresh for other people to discover. and usually, those people are teens.
I think your average English speaking person can actually understand terms that originate from AAVE because it is so clearly related to "regular" English, so people don't immediately know where the terms come from, so if they encounter it from non-black speakers, it sounds like a cool turn of phrase that people can easily adopt (if sometimes incorrectly) and don't know how to attribute even if they knew.
Taking the "respect" for Japanese that has been brought up, I think the impression comes from the fact that anime fans using Japanese (often incorrectly as well) can't be understood by anyone except each other for the most part (not to mention Japanese people generally, not Americans with Japanese heritage, are usually pretty pleased when something gets adopted).
I don't think there's much respect going on in general, just what can easily be understood and adopted by the population at large, is. As far as using things correctly, that ship has sailed forever ago even for "non-black" English phrases. Like, as nonsensical as something like I could care less might be, that's what a lot of people say.
I'm more curious about how non-black people should be attributing new slang that enters the language.
Taking the "respect" for Japanese that has been brought up, I think the impression comes from the fact that anime fans using Japanese (often incorrectly as well) can't be understood by anyone except each other for the most part (not to mention Japanese people generally, not Americans with Japanese heritage, are usually pretty pleased when something gets adopted).
I don't think there's much respect going on in general, just what can easily be understood and adopted by the population at large, is. As far as using things correctly, that ship has sailed forever ago even for "non-black" English phrases. Like, as nonsensical as something like I could care less might be, that's what a lot of people say.
I'm more curious about how non-black people should be attributing new slang that enters the language.
that man fucks cheeseburgers
Please tell me this is real, lol.
A discussion about phrases getting diluted from being misused and your first response was to say as a biracial dude you have a 50% chance of doing so. Kind of hard to take that at face value.
Why does this man wish to fuck that cheeseburger
that man fucks cheeseburgers
Y'all ever see fifteen white people and two very uncomfortable black people yell out "WAKANDA FOREVER" on an office sales floor, to "pump everyone up to sell sell sell!"?
I did and I wish I hadn't. And it happened daily for months.
It was real.
Apparently that was the one that made them back out of the campaign and say they didn't fully understand.
I did and I wish I hadn't. And it happened daily for months.
It was real.
Apparently that was the one that made them back out of the campaign and say they didn't fully understand.
This is especially frustrating coming from non-American black folk who will use AAVE and other aspects of black American culture while simultaneously saying we "don't have one".
Certain Africans and Caribbean black folk will literally say this without a hint of self-awareness.
While "this is what happens with language over time and it's kind of unavoidable" is certainly true, it's also somewhat of a copout here because, as Nep has laid out well, there is a specific way that this happens with Black lexicon and how it's "adopted."
The first two pages of this thread are a shining example. A whole laundry list of terms that originated as AAVE, several of which having been around for longer than Slayven's been alive, and people not only didn't know of their AAVE origins, they attributed them to kids. White kids.
At a certain point only "intentional" makes sense.
The first two pages of this thread are a shining example. A whole laundry list of terms that originated as AAVE, several of which having been around for longer than Slayven's been alive, and people not only didn't know of their AAVE origins, they attributed them to kids. White kids.
At a certain point only "intentional" makes sense.
facts. We're always going to set the trends no matter how many times they eventually fuck them up.
Can't say I can relate to that since if anyone heard me speak they'd hear a French accent I can't get rid of.
I'm also supremely lazy so while I try to use correct english forms my vocab will tend to veer toward sophisticated English because in a lot of cases you can just use a French turn of phrase to sound fancy in English.
So yeah you're probably never going to catch me dead using slang because the only slang I use is in French.
And huh....
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7PXzsAOWeo
Interestingly the process by which the mainstream is stealing slang from AAVE is also what happens in French slang where it's 1st decried as "not real language that poor people use" then because it's cooler than whatever the fuck sophisticated people use then it gets adopted in the mainstream.
Can't say if there's a similar sense of loss from the community it originates from though.
Also if I see woke use by someone in French, it tells me that either that person is making fun of the antiwokists or has no idea whatever the fuck he's talking about.
Like to a degree that an English speaker would never get.
I'm also supremely lazy so while I try to use correct english forms my vocab will tend to veer toward sophisticated English because in a lot of cases you can just use a French turn of phrase to sound fancy in English.
So yeah you're probably never going to catch me dead using slang because the only slang I use is in French.
And huh....
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7PXzsAOWeo
Interestingly the process by which the mainstream is stealing slang from AAVE is also what happens in French slang where it's 1st decried as "not real language that poor people use" then because it's cooler than whatever the fuck sophisticated people use then it gets adopted in the mainstream.
Can't say if there's a similar sense of loss from the community it originates from though.
Also if I see woke use by someone in French, it tells me that either that person is making fun of the antiwokists or has no idea whatever the fuck he's talking about.
Like to a degree that an English speaker would never get.
I mean this was apparent way back in the jazz era. Even the term "jazz" is a complete white-adopted corruption of its original intent and delivery.
long live WFH policies!
I would have died from 2ndhand embarrassment
There's this, but there's also the lingering weeb factor. Anime is well within the mainstream at this point, but people who are a little too into anime are still considered a bit cringe. Sprinkling slang appropriated from anime crosses that line socially.
That's not to say that anime-acquired words haven't entered the language, but their use as slang hasn't.
That said, Doja Cat totally cribbed the term "demon lord" from anime.
Its authenticity; that said not many grew up truly in that environment but adjacent, shouts to Akwafina. It's a hit dog stipulation, no one is going to argue with like El-P over his use of slang but 99% of white kids using the slang did not grow up in environments that El-P did.
Woof! too much church going on here!
This just gives me flashbacks to middle and high school when white friends and acquaintances would like to try their new learned words on us just to get some raised eye-brows and side-eye.
Basically…I guess it just comes with the territory; anything we create will repackaged for the world to use then act like they just created out of thin air.
This just gives me flashbacks to middle and high school when white friends and acquaintances would like to try their new learned words on us just to get some raised eye-brows and side-eye.
Basically…I guess it just comes with the territory; anything we create will repackaged for the world to use then act like they just created out of thin air.
It's not the use of Japanese words by weebs that is considered respectful in the comparison. It's the fact that white people at least nominally recognize Japanese as a language that should be taken more seriously than weebs give it credit for. It's something you should seriously sit down, study, and immerse yourself in outside of the context of cartoons. AAVE does not have this level is distinction in the populous at large. If it's not considered an ignorant way to speak, it is fully divorced from its roots entirely and attributed to something else like those darn Gen Z white kids.
UK here. We've used sus forever to mean something is suspect / suspicious.
In this thread about misuse and appropriation of regional African American vernacular, do you think UK regional slang has any bearing on the topic?
Yeah most people aren't aware of the origins of a lot of things let alone fairly "new" (in terms of popularity) slang terms.
The thing is the internet just drives shit into the ground. I will see let them cook for the first time or something and within what seems like two weeks every thread is something something let them cook. Until people move on to the next thing to use over and over again.
If you give white people stuff they are likely going to ruin it. Scribble another tally.
Why not? African American culture, or American culture full stop, travels the globe. We inherit much of the slang posted in the video and it's doubly cringey when it reaches our shores.
I cringed so hard I literally got called out by my boss. He was like "you know their manager could see your stink face right? Cut that shit out".
You see, they were also doing the arm crossing.
No kidding. I teach at a white affluent private MS school, they LOVE all these slang words. It's in literally every sentence they use.
I slide something else in here. Wine moms straight up stealing Queen/Gay culture, especially POC queer/gay culture. And you know they go right into the voting booths vote republican.
Anyway Paris is Buring in on Max and Youtube, amazing DOc
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SqvD1-0odY
Anyway Paris is Buring in on Max and Youtube, amazing DOc
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SqvD1-0odY
I don't think it matters outside of a snide laugh when weebs use Japanese words. I'm painfully aware most aren't actually interested in learning anything besides what they learn by "osmosis."
But when weebs use a Japanese word, almost no one outside of Japan or folks with Japanese heritage know wtf they're talking about (and even they don't know half the time). That "respect" you're talking about is just forced acknowledgement that the words can't be put in any other context than as a foreign language by the average standard English-only speaker.
A non-black person uses a word taken from AAVE and... most people at least feel like they get it, right or wrong. It's not totally divorced from "standard" English and so the average person feels like they can use it themselves and may not recognize its origins.
I mean it to say the etymological intent of regional slang, and whatever connotations affixed to them, can be fully divorced from other uses and meanings. Especially those international.
Just so happens in this case they are closely tangential.
I would have sued for murder attempt, clearly they were trying to kill you specifically.
I'm not even a native speaker and the anecdote alone hurt me!
YOU were called out and not the bozos trying their Halloween costumes for work?
I'm old and white. I use "mid" and I like it a lot. Good, bad, mid. Nice single syllable words.
oh god I need more context for this
like...did you work at disney, and what you were trying to sell sell sell was black panther merch? i'm guessing not!
I recognize the analogy isn't 1:1, but at the same time English is also filled with a bunch of loanwords from Spanish, French, German, and even Japan. No one is going to balk at "karaoke," for example, even if we butcher the pronunciation. But even then it's understood that it is a Japanese word, and no one has a problem with saying that. Japanese speakers are free to use the word in a way that Black people are not allowed to use much of AAVE without judgement. When it comes from our mouths, it's "ghetto" and "uneducated." It only is given respect when it has been assimilated, and thus destroyed, by white people.
But yes, the use of AAVE might not be as divorced from English as Japanese is linguistically, but that isn't really the realm of where I was trying to rest the analogy. It's the reaction to when someone is chided for using AAVE in an incorrect or cringy way that is the key difference. The reaction is usually one of defensiveness, because as you said people feel like they can use it for themselves. But the thing is they never asked; it was only assumed they could. And they assume because they don't feel as if Black people can own their own culture the way other groups can, so the outflow of our culture into wider white American culture at large is like a burst pipe.
And sure, the immediate rebuttal to this is the matter of etymological ignorance. People don't mean to take from Black people; the words just randomly showed up in their lives one day and they sounded nifty, so they adopted them. It wasn't malicious. But I would then go on to say that naivete is not an excuse, especially when people are likely to be sore learners about the subject. What I mean by a sore learner is that the prospect of learning can absolutely be a veil for subconscious maliciousness. Like, if you were to ask a quantum physicist to explain something to you, it's likely because you understand yours and their relationship to the subject at hand is wildly uneven. You know fuck all about quantum mechanics, and they at least know something. So you defer to them as an authority. You don't fight their answers and tell them they're wrong, unless your intention the entire time with even asking the question was to ultimately undermine and challenge their expertise.
Black people get fought in matters of Blackness all the fucking time because non-Black people have never actually had to entertain the idea of Black intellect, expertise, and ownership, so you get this combative-ass shit all the time whenever these kinds of subjects come up. "You can't redefine the word racism." "Actually, Vikings wore dreadlocks too." "Uhm, that's a double negative." "This is just how culture works." It's an exercise in futility. But the likelihood of a white person trying to actually school a Japanese person on Japanese culture is lower. Like, sure; online where we're all anonymous until we aren't, some cocky weeb might try to spout some nonsense with their whole chest, but they would at least be more willing to shut the fuck up if the person they were talking to revealed their identity as a Japanese person who had lived in Japan for some time. Suddenly, there is some authority regained and the context between the speakers has shifted to that of a novice and master relationship. The Japanese person is now an expert, because Japanese culture is, in itself, a legitimate culture that needs to be experienced to be understood. Black American culture is not held in this regard. It is taken without acknowledgement or respect, and fuck you for trying to reclaim any of it. What are you, a segregationist?
Indeed, it's the idea that Black folks have any sort of authority over others regarding matters of our culture that pisses people the fuck off. It's why you see so much hemming and hawwing about the n-word that you don't with any other slur. "Why can they say it when we can't?" The fact that Black people can do something with less impunity than others can is just against the fucking natural order of things. Because we don't own anything. We don't own our land. We don't own our looks. We don't own our music and dances. We don't own our words. We are not to be respected. That is the order of things, based in the literal material reality of how the world even runs in the first place.
Ultimately, white people will never defer to Black people on issues of Black culture in the way that they would defer to Japanese people about Japanese culture. I'm not arguing that they consider Japanese people as equals, or that they genuinely respect Japanese people. I'm arguing that there's definitely a difference in how these things are seen. White people acknowledge that Japan has a culture. White people don't even know the African continent has fucking skyscrapers, much less millenias-old civilizations and cultures that still exist today.
I don't want to derail too much, but he was laughing when he called me out because he saw how ridiculous it was as well. Dude was culturally sensitive - first time they did it, he was like "jesus christ, imagine being a black member of their team and seeing all these old white people trying to be Black Panther".
I worked at AT&T. I was selling Direct TV when the streaming wars began to get heated and they didn't get their own decent streaming service until near the end of my tenure. Morale was fucking down, the company was struggling, and the director of our office was like "do anything to make the people happy, but sell some fuckin TVs or I'm gonna fire the whole goddamn call center".
It wasn't the only questionable thing. We had regular taco and salsa days because they thought it would motivate our 30% Latino workforce to up their sales - they'd have the elderly white ladies from the office (one being the HR person) wearing sombraroes.
Every day they played a two hour loop of trap music and then Pitbull to motivate young workers of color. When someone complained and asked if we could change it to like pop or country, they were "I put on fuckin Brooks and Dunn and sales will drop to zero". The one time I agreed with him.
It was a fucking mess. There wasn't a day that went by that me and some coworkers would look at each other over something and unconsciously be like "you see that" "boy yes I see it".
I'm going to go ahead and start with an apology.
I hate to send a short response to an argument like that but I've written and deleted a lot of words that just ended up being me regurgitating what you already wrote.
Right or wrong, the language evolves as it does, and it's incredibly hard to prescribe a direction, so I would quibble there in terms of the science analogy. But the disrespect you described toward the original usage before and after adoption is both unthinkable in terms of foreign languages and overwhelmingly apparent in terms of AAVE. However it is adopted, the claim of ownership by the culture at large after the fact is actually insane in that regard.
No need for apologies. I know I can get wordy lol.
You're correct that language is not a hard science and we can quibble there, but again the purpose of the analogy was to demonstrate the relationship between student and teacher. Generally someone in a student role is more apt to put stock into what the teacher is saying because they're deferring to some level of expertise that they don't themselves possess. White people don't treat Black issues as the intellectual and cultural ownership of Black people. We're not experts to them because we're inherently inferior. So in trying to have these conversations, you get excessive amounts of pushback because a lot of times when you're being asked to explain some racial issue as a Black person to a white person, it's not actually because they care what we have to say. It's because they're trying to prove we don't know anything by challenging us.
And indeed, the outright audacious ownership claims white people have made about Black culture are literally insane. But that's the default state of things.
If they're Afro-Latinos I'm perfectly cool with it.
From an episode of Blackish - "J. Lo Puerto Ricans can't use the word, but Rosie Perez ones can. Big Pun and Fat Joe are good to go, Marc Anthony and Ricky Martin aren't. Basically, the whole Terror Squad can say it, but not Menudo"
